WELL‐BEING AND TIME

Abstract

A person can fare well either over an extended period or at a particular moment. We evaluate how well a person fares over an extended period when we speak of him as having a good day, a good year, or a good life, or when we speak of such a period as going well for him. We evaluate how a person fares at a particular moment when we say that he is doing well just then. We favor different idioms in these two kinds of evaluation: we are more inclined to speak of a person as having a good life than as having a good moment; and, conversely, we are more inclined to use the terms 'welfare' or 'well-being' to express how well things are going for him at a particular moment than to evaluate how well his life goes as a whole. Nevertheless, evaluations of both kinds are judgments of relational value-of what's good for the person or good in relation to his interests-and so they are bolh judgments of the person's welfare.^ What is the relation between the welfare value^ of a temporal period in someone's life and his welfare at individual moments during that period? And what is the relation between the value of a period and that of the shorter periods it comprises? Is a good day just a day during which one is frequently well off?^^ Is a good week just a week in which the good days outweigh the bad? Is a good life just a string of good years? The answer to these questions would be yes if well-being were additive. If the welfare value of a time-period in one's life were equivalent to the sum of momentary well-being that one enjoyed during that period, then a good period would indeed be a period during which one was, on balance, well off, and a good life would be a life composed, on balance, of good periods. But I doubt whether well-being is additive in this way. Of course, I do not mean to rule out the possibility that the amount of momentary welfare accruing to someone during his life and the welfare